Lonard leads lacklustre field

LOCAL knowledge, they say, is essential if a traditional links course is to be conquered.

Try telling that to Peter Lonard, the 37-year-old from Sydney, who arrived here barely in time to walk nine holes of the Baltray links on Wednesday night before tackling the course "blind" on Thursday morning.

He did have his lucky moments since the Nissan Irish Open began but he has held his head in impressive fashion to shoot an eight under par 64 on Thursday and follow up yesterday with a solid 70.